Crime is catching

Robust sentencing early in life can definitely be effective in reducing crime levels, as this reader clearly illustrates

Saturday June 08 2013, 1.01am, The Times

Saturday June 08 2013, 1.01am, The Times

Sir, Theodore Dalrymple (Thunderer, June 5) is right that giving more resolute sentences to those who spend the first half of their life engaged in violent crime is effective in reducing crime levels.

I was brought up in New Mills in Derbyshire in the 1960s. I was at school with three extremely disruptive characters. Their activity was supported by others and the net result was that New Mills had a crime rate only matched by Liverpool. Time moved on, two were jailed and the third died in a car accident; crime levels plummeted. These were key figures and their removal from the equation saved others from the abyss.